To: natelson@pipeline.com, North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc:
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] pears & fireblight
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 09:50:19 -0500
Commercially viable - maybe not, but certainly for a small home planting,
there's no way I'd omit pears. Fireblight can be a problem, but it's not
insurmountable - and I've seen some apple varieties in my orchard that are
more susceptible to FB than many of my European or Asian pears. At least
in my orchard, the likelihood of pears bearing good quality fruits is much
greater than for apples or peaches.
Dr. Natelson gave a good overview of Southern pears that should work for you.
Keiffer, which folks seem to either love or impugn as inedible, also seems
to tolerate fireblight well - it's not immune, but it takes a licking and
keeps on ticking, as the old Timex commercials used to say - I see lots of
old pears hanging on around old homeplaces, with varying amounts of
fireblight damage evident, but they keep on producing loads of fruit - and
most of these are quite likely Keiffer pears. I like it, because it's
dependable - and, it's the pear I grew up eating, so it's what I expect a
pear to be - firm, crunchy, juicy, flavorful, and gritty.
Dr. David Griffith, at Dadeville, AL has preserved a number of good old
Southern pears in his orchard, including the Ledbetter, which is very
fireblight resistant(I don't think you could prounounce any as being
totally immune), and produces a high quality fruit.
Follow this link to the most recent NAFEX Southern Pear Interest Group
Newsletter - and you might consider contacting Travis Callahan to subscribe
to the S-PIG, so you can receive updates/newsletters, as they're released.
http://www.geocities.com/ccduster/page10.htm